I upgraded from 9800x3D to 9950x3D and didn’t reinstall Windows—it worked fine. That’s not bad at all!
I upgraded from 9800x3D to 9950x3D and didn’t reinstall Windows—it worked fine. That’s not bad at all!
Before anyone comments: yes, they do the same with games, but I needed extra cores that I thought weren’t necessary. I’m swapping it out, giving away the 9800x3d. Yada yada. I own an ASUS STRIX X870-A GAMING WI-FI Motherboard with the latest BIOS. After installing the 9950x3d, I updated the chipset driver and restarted my PC right away. Of course, I messed up the TPM setup, so when I tried to log in for the first time after setting a PIN, it failed and my password wasn’t accepted (frustrating). Now I have a HIRENS USB that lets me boot up and access my account if I ever run into the same issue. My concern is: should I have performed a full Windows reinstall, like replacing the motherboard, or is there really no difference? I’ve never upgraded a CPU before; usually I swap the board when changing components. I’ve heard about “core parking” and from my research it looks like those problems in the 7000 series were resolved with updates.
CPU upgrade doesn’t require a full Windows reinstall. Switching motherboards from AMD to Intel or vice versa is usually safe. My current Windows setup on my gaming PC runs on a 5900x + B550 system, now it’s upgrading to 9800x3D + B850. Both my B550 and B850 use the same chipset driver version. If issues arise, a simple reinstall should fix them. The key is: test without reinstall first, and only do it if needed. Don’t overhaul what’s working.
Remove the chipset driver fully and restart it. New parts introduced using dual-CCD chips appear during the setup for x3D.
Open Device Manager, navigate to the VIEW tab, select SHOW HIDDEN DEVICES. This reveals any leftover hardware still present in the Windows system. You may confidently delete or uninstall any grayed-out devices and their related drivers when prompted.